By Matt Le CrenNAPERVILLE – Betting against Jack Hill may not be a bright idea.

The Naperville North junior bagged his first varsity goal in dramatic fashion Tuesday, scoring on a first half buzzer-beater against Oswego on the opening night of the Best of the West Tournament.

Hill’s goal gave the sixth-ranked Huskies a 2-0 halftime en route to a 4-0 win in their Best of the West Tournament opener . Perhaps more importantly for some of his biology classmates, it means some students will be able to eat in class Wednesday.

“I told him and he was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go out and buy some treats for class tomorrow.’ It cost Mr. Champion a few bucks at the grocery store, so that was cool.”

The way Hill scored was cool, at least for the Huskies.

With time winding down in the first half, Ethan Harvey launched a shot from 35 yards out that hit the crossbar and bounced straight to Hill, who immediately settled it and opened fire from five yards out.

Oswego goalkeeper Nick Kearns got a hand on the shot, but the ball rolled across the line as time expired.

“Throughout the game their outside backs were coming in a little bit,” Hill said. “Coach kept saying, ‘Get to the middle.’

“So I just got to the middle, Ethan played a great ball over the top, and I got lucky. It hit the crossbar, came down, hit the ground and then came right to me.”

Though the host Huskies (2-1-1) dominated play from the start, Hill’s goal gave an emotional boost because Kearns had spent much of the first 40 minutes stymieing them.

“He was making a lot of good saves,” Hill said. “It was good to go into half with more momentum.”

Kearns made eight saves before being relieved by Oswaldo Salazar midway through the second half.

The senior had his hands full from the beginning, making his first save just 25 seconds into the game when he lunged to stop an open shot from Jack Bromagen.

Kearns then made a reflex save on Jack Barry’s snap header off a Chris Sullivan corner-kick in the sixth minute. Seven minutes after that, he made a kick save to deny James Zhang on a breakaway.

Kearns, who hopes to play in college, likes being busy.

“It makes it a lot of fun,” Kearns said. “I feel like when I’m not busy, I get kind of lazy.”

There was no chance of that happening against the Huskies, who attacked in waves and outshot the Panthers 23-4.

“That was probably a pretty good game for me,” Kearns said. “Unfortunately we couldn’t really do much else.

“Probably their best thing was they were really good on set-pieces, like all the corners they had, and they had a really big throw-in. That’s probably what killed us the most.”

Oswego coach Brian Falli agreed.

“The problem was we committed some fouls away from the goal,” Falli said. “Those free-kicks turn into goal-scoring opportunities and when you give a team two or three shots at goal, it’s hard to play. You’ve got to win that first ball and clear it out.”

The Panthers (0-3-0) failed to do that when Naperville North's Matt Bilardello curved a long pass from the right wing into the box with 12:17 left in the first half.

Fellow defender Colin Iverson got a touch on it in the middle of a crowd before Ian Guppy pounced on it to open the scoring.

“(Kearns) made a few saves, and then we started pushing and pushing,” Guppy said. “As one (goal) came, they just kept coming.”

Indeed, while star forward Chris Sullivan did not find the back of the net, missing the target on three shots and being stopped by Kearns on another, four oher Huskies scored.

Zhang tallied off an assist from Sullivan to make it 3-0 with 27:15 to go in the second half, beating Kearns with an off-speed shot.

Freshman midfielder Ali Khorfan tallied his second goal of the season on a volley at the 10:07 mark to finish the scoring. Iverson ended the game with 2 assists.

“We’re super young,” Konrad said. “We’re finding our way and still moving some pieces around to see what’s going to give us the best chance to win.

“A lot of kids are still getting their feet wet because they’re so young. You can tell there’s a lot of nerves, but I think we’re starting to get comfortable, and we’re coming together.”

Indeed, the Huskies have only five returning starters and most of the returning reserves hadn’t seen much action. But they’ve stayed tough against a formidable early schedule that includes a tie against Lyons and a 3-1 loss to perennial state title contender Morton, ranked ninth and third respectively in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25.“We’re pretty happy about the results,” Guppy said. “Morton could have gone either way, same with Lyons

“But it’s really nice to see how our team has developed because we’re kind of a young team. I think in the long run we’ll definitely get better.”

The Huskies will rely heavily on first-year attackers like Hill and Guppy to help take some of the load off the Bowling Green-bound Sullivan.

“The team just expects me to do more, and I’m going as hard as I can,” said Hill, who was named Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match. “I’m just playing how I want to play right now, and that’s all I can really do.

“North has always been a very dominant program, and I’ve come up through all the levels of the program. It just feels great playing for the varsity now for coach Konrad.”

“I don’t think we’re playing our best right now, but the three games that we’ve played are probably the hardest teams that we’re playing,” Kearns said. “I think as we move into conference we’ll be looking a lot better.”

But the Panthers have two more games in the Best of the West before opening Suburban Prairie Conference action next Tuesday against Plainfield North. They’ll play Benet on Thursday and Fremd on Saturday.

“We made our schedule the way we did this year on purpose,” Falli said. “We have a long outlook of (preparing for) conference and regionals. We’re going to be tested in this tournament.”

Naperville North was perhaps the toughest test of all. Only the play of Kearns kept the score from getting out of hand.

“(Kearns) is going to be a weapon,” Falli said. “He’s one of the better keepers in the area, and he’s going to keep us in some of those games.

“Unfortunately we gave up that heartbreaker right before the half. If we go in 1-0 it’s a little bit different game, but credit Naperville North.

“They’re very organized, they’re very skilled, and they’re very fast. When we did make a mistake, they definitely capitalized on it.”

Naperville North goalkeepers Tommy Welch and Jason Barba did not have to make a save, a sign that the Panthers have a ways to go offensively. Falli expects junior Julia Ibarra and senior Mitch Keraby, the team’s top two scorers last year, to step up. Keraby scored against Batavia in the season opener.

“Where we’ve come over the last three games is definitely an improvement,” Falli said. “It just wasn’t our night tonight but things did look a lot better and credit Naperville North. They put the kibosh on what we were trying to do.”